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<title>Cause You're My Painkiller (When My Brain Gets Bitter) by GrannyBoo</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22674727">Cause You're My Painkiller (When My Brain Gets Bitter)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrannyBoo/pseuds/GrannyBoo'>GrannyBoo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Barebacking, Basic Witchery Monster Hunting Violence, Communication Issues, Eventual Smut, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Touch-Starved</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:02:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,776</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22674727</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrannyBoo/pseuds/GrannyBoo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaskier isn’t stupid.<br/> <br/>While a commonly debated subject, he isn’t lacking in intellect. He suffers from lapses in judgement; whether that be approaching Geralt mid-battle despite multiple warnings to steer clear, sleeping with the pretty woman at the bar when he can see the glint of a betrothal necklace hiding within her pocket, deciding to wait and explain the situation when the fiance comes calling with a shovel and murderous intent before he opts to run…</p><p>Well, he can’t exactly be accused of having stellar judgement but that is besides the point. The point is, he isn’t stupid. He’s well read, well traveled, didn’t suffer in any of his marks at Oxenfurt more than what can be put down as teachers not enjoying his particular form of self-expression than any real failing of his own.</p><p>So it wasn’t exactly the greatest discovery of the ages that Geralt seems to suffer from a fairly awful case of touch deprivation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>386</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jaskier isn’t stupid.</p><p>While a commonly debated subject, he isn’t lacking in intellect. He suffers from lapses in judgement; whether that be approaching Geralt mid-battle despite multiple warnings to steer clear, sleeping with the pretty woman at the bar when he can see the glint of a betrothal necklace hiding within her pocket, deciding to wait and <em>explain</em> the situation when the fiance comes calling with a shovel and murderous intent before he opts to run…</p><p>Well, he can’t exactly be accused of having stellar judgement but that is besides the point. The point is, he isn’t stupid. He’s well read, well traveled, didn’t suffer in any of his marks at Oxenfurt more than what can be put down as teachers not enjoying his particular form of self-expression than any real failing of his own.</p><p>So it wasn’t exactly the greatest discovery of the ages that Geralt seems to suffer from a fairly awful case of touch deprivation.</p><p>He didn’t really learn of this during his studies, mind. No, he learned most of what he knows from the brothel by the university. On occasions when his studies were particularly rough and he was trapped in his rooms, reading or writing, composing or practicing, and the itch beneath his skin became intolerable, he’d venture off to the brothel, pay for a night and spend it almost desperate for skin-to-skin contact.</p><p>Alissa, the lovely red-head he frequented the most, with freckles dotting across her face like constellations and a warm, red-lipped smile; she called it Skin Hunger.</p><p>“Men get it often. Scholars or students sometimes. Mercenaries, or witchers get it worst. The hazards of a life of violence, solitude, and loneliness,” she explains, stroking his collarbone with dark-tinted nails while they recline back against the mass of pillows, his head resting against her naked chest while they take a break from their activities.</p><p>“Have you…entertained? A Witcher?” He tries for casual but can’t help the almost awestruck colour to his words. He can feel the chuckle through her ribs and her nails start to trace up to his hairline, scraping across his scalp pleasantly.</p><p>“A few.”</p><p>“And…were they-“</p><p>“Rough?” She asks, the airy post-coital tone to her voice slipping into something a little more defensive. “Violent?”</p><p>“Lonely.”</p><p>She pauses in her ministrations and hums thoughtfully.</p><p>“Not ones to show it. Common from the Hunger. Too little touch becomes too much, you stop searching for it so then when you are touched with even a hint of kindness…” she trails off, a quick glance up at her face revealing something pensive in her expression. She snaps out of it quickly enough and offers him a half-smile. “I try to touch with as much kindness as they desire. Some prefer rough, which is fine. Others want to be cherished. It takes a good eye to know which wants which,” she explains. She looks down at him and worries at the inside of her cheek a moment before distracting him with her clever fingers and red-stained lips.</p><p>He learns a little more about the topic with her and through personal experience, after watching one too many school friends succumb to the pressures of their education, of the isolation required to get the scores demanded by their standing or their families. It starts slow, a pat on the shoulder here, a quick hug there. Before he knows it, he’s comforting over-stressed friends in dim lit corners, tears hidden in the shoulder of his doublet, or wrapped around each other in one of their beds. Not sexual by any means, just contact for the sake of contact.</p><p>Not that he’s ever been opposed to bedding members of the same sex (as difficult as it is to determine who would be equally willing to participate without risking a jab to the gut) but when they part ways, a far more relaxed air around them and a pleasant hum in Julian’s chest at knowing he could help with something as simple as touch, well…It starts a long and vibrant path of decisions he makes.</p><p>Like sleeping with the pretty woman at the bar with a betrothal necklace in her pocket because she’s tracing her nails over the skin of her arms, summoning goosebumps in their wake and looking longingly at the couple in the corner, melting into each other’s touch.</p><p>-</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>-</p><p>Now, Geralt of Rivia isn’t a lonely maiden standing at a bar or a twitchy, overtired student, but he attracts Jaskier’s attention nonetheless, both when they meet at the pub for the first time and later in their joint travels.</p><p>He’s gruff, he’s distant, definitively prefers the company of his horse, Roach, to any humans’ company and most certainly suffers from touch deprivation. At least from any physical contact that isn’t being delivered by some hot-headed bandit or a creature intending on tearing him to pieces.</p><p>While accidental contact isn’t exactly uncommon, what with travelling together for weeks; the occasional brush of hands when reaching for food or passing supplies to each other in camps, the ‘warning’ jabs from the witcher when he’s losing his patience for Jaskier’s comments or lyrics…the first time Jaskier initiates contact with Geralt in more than a passing brush, it…doesn’t go quite as well as he’d thought it would.</p><p>-</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>-</p><p>“Good gods above- <em>its just me!”</em></p><p>He can’t quite see the witcher’s face, not with how he’s been chicken-armed up against a door, cheek pressed painfully hard into the rough wood and wrist practically creaking with the strain. He’s released quickly, thankfully, but really he wasn’t expecting quite so…<em>vehement</em> a response when he’d patted Geralt amiably on his bare shoulder after he’d come back from working the tavern below for coin. He knew Geralt had remained upstairs to bathe, the build up of muck and monster gunk making even his lip curl in distaste, and the man was only half-dressed when Jaskier returned, loose fitting sleep-pants and the loose-drape of his white hair the only thing covering his pale skin. He was close to the door, head tilting up in acknowledgement when Jaskier enters their room and it felt natural to, as he chirped his greeting, to give Geralt a quick pat to the shoulder.</p><p>Now, granted, he hadn’t announced his intent and it did seem the man was engrossed in whatever it was he was doing with the potion bottles in his bag, and it should have occurred to Jaskier that a man only acquainted with violent intentions when it comes to physical contact might take an unannounced touch as threatening, snapping on instinct more than conscious thought. Geralt himself seems even more uncertain of the chain of events as Jaskier is, looking at his hand with a furrowed brow and a tension to his jaw that is just a little more emphasised than his normal brooding expression.</p><p>“What were you doing?”</p><p>Geralt’s gaze takes on an almost accusatory shade, aimed directly at Jaskier and the bard can’t help but raise his hands in an attempt to pacify him.</p><p>“<em>Nothing</em>, I was just…being friendly?” He himself doesn’t know why it sounds so uncertain but at the very least, Geralt doesn’t seem to sense any falsehood but he’s still confused at the response. Replying with nothing more than one of his characteristic grunts of acknowledgment, he watches the way Jaskier massages his wrist and hesitates, jaw unclenching like he’s going to say something more but instead, he turns and kneels back down by his bag, returning to his potion-rifling.</p><p>“Not um- Not one for friendly pats on the back, eh? I’ll…keep that in mind,” Jaskier mumbles on his way to pack his lute away for the evening and get ready for some much needed relaxation.</p><p>“…Its fine.”</p><p>He barely catches the man’s voice, and only because he pauses in disturbing the glass vials in his pack so the room is otherwise silent.</p><p>“Warning first.”</p><p>The witcher, seemingly satisfied with whatever he was attempting to do, stands and collects his various blades and a whetstone, sharpening them in preparation of the next job.</p><p>“…Noted,” Jaskier replies, toeing off his booths and relaxing on his bed, notebook against his propped up knee and quill scraping absent-mindedly in the margins in time with each drag of the blade.</p><p>The next time he pats Geralt on the shoulder, he approaches him from the front, raising his hand clear in view and allows the touch to linger on the thick black pauldrons covering the witcher’s shoulder for a second or two before he retreats.</p><p>Geralt hums in neutral acknowledgement and Jaskier doesn’t risk a shattered wrist so it’s a win all around.</p><p>-</p><p>--</p><p>--</p><p>-</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jaskier has been faced with many a daunting task. Playing Queen Calanthe’s court with a room of countless noblemen wanting his spine as a trophy, now <em>that</em> should have made his palms sweat and his heart thrum in his chest like a hummingbird.</p><p>But that’s nothing in comparison to what’s plaguing his mind with anxiety and making his mouth go dry right at this moment.</p><p>It’s the expanse of pale skin before him, the tense and twitching muscles of the witcher’s back and side, broken up by the three massive slashes tearing from just below his neck and down to the curve of his hip. They’re bleeding sluggishly now, no longer the heavy rivulets from earlier in the evening just after he’d returned from his job but they still needed treatment, at the very least to stave off infection while his enhanced healing took care of the wounds themselves.</p><p>And that requires the salve in Jaskier’s hand.</p><p>The salve he’s <em>meant</em> to be applying but honestly all he can think of is the first time he’d tried to tend to one of Geralt’s wounds and the man had practically bitten Jaskier’s head off, snarling like his namesake before hiding himself away in the corner of the room to lick his own wounds.</p><p>The big difference is that Geralt can’t work on these himself. He is many things, but a contortionist, the man is not. So, in a moment of pain-fuelled, but still begrudging, need, he actually <em>accepted</em> Jaskier’s help; stripping his tattered shirt beside the pile of armour (now in desperate need of repair) and dropped onto the bed with a barely audible grunt. He’d been gone for days, little to no sleep, tracking and finally engaging the beast (“Wyv’n,” was all he grunted upon his return, coin purse full and energy depleted and god did he sleep or eat at all?). Thankfully, the Alderman in this particular village wasn’t the regular sort; being that he actually <em>paid</em> the witcher for his work without issue or complaint, and now they could at least take some time for Geralt to rest and recuperate before moving on to the next village. To the next job, and the next set of injuries Jaskier would do nothing but <em>stare at because gods is that bone-?</em></p><p>“Jaskier.”</p><p>Geralt’s voice is low, muffled against the pillows on the bed, one golden eye peering out at him beneath a furrowed brow.</p><p>“Before it heals over,” he urges and Jaskier’s nodding shakily, sitting beside Geralt on the bed and eyeing the gouges. It takes him another minute or so to figure out where to start as he dips his fingers into the pot of salve, letting out a quietly amused hum as it tingles against his skin, not dissimilar to the sharp chill of mint on the tongue. He’s cautious; skirting the edges of the least mangled looking piece of flesh and watching the tension in Geralt’s shoulders, his arms- really any indication he’s about to get his arm broken.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>He moves a little further into the wound, the white-blue salve turning muddied purple as it comes into contact with his blood. There’s a sharp inhale from the witcher when he jabs a little roughly at the flesh, his hand starting to tremble from maintaining as little contact as possible. He can’t keep up like this, with his arm hovering carefully away from Geralt’s bare skin, the only point of contact being his blood-and-salve-slick fingertips.</p><p>“Sorry. I’m uhm. I’ll have to-“</p><p>“Whatever it is, just do it.”</p><p>Jaskier swallows and hums a noise of acknowledgment as he adjusts himself on the bed. He rests the blade of his hand in the dip of Geralt’s spine, using the touch to help steady his hand a little as he makes the slow progress down his back, replenishing the salve when he starts feeling too much of the tissue beneath. Geralt should be in agony, having someone touch deep and open wounds the way Jaskier is, without any pain-relief, but he doesn’t so much as twitch.</p><p>Except when Jaskier gently presses against his thigh (avoiding the bloodied hip like the plague, pretending it had everything to do with the wound and nothing to do with the tantalising ridges of muscle disappearing beneath his pants).</p><p>“On your side,” Jaskier murmurs, pressing a little firmer on Geralt's thigh until he complies, rolling onto his uninjured side and facing Jaskier. His free arm hovers uncertainly until he places it the only place that’s comfortable; on Jaskier's thigh, his fingers brushing the dip of his hip. Jaskier forces his focus back onto the task at hand with a deep breath.</p><p>There were only the tapered edges of the wounds left, where they met the subtle curve of his hip and skirted Geralt's ribs. The bard applied the remainder of the salve as carefully as he could, thumb bracing his hand by trailing along the curve of Geralt's ribs. He winces a little at the sharp intake of breath from the Witcher, an apology already on his tongue, fuck he must have touched something broken or tender-</p><p>“Its fine.”</p><p>The man's voice is a low rumble, face practically moulded into Jaskier's thigh. His shoulders only hold a subtle tension, easily brushed off as pain but what Jaskier can see of his face is glazed over in an expression the bard would call almost <em>relaxed</em>. He would dismiss it, what with his hands covered in the man’s blood and the fact that he’s pretty fucking certain the man’s ribs were on open display not half-an-hour ago but Geralt does look softer; half-curled into Jaskier’s leg and arm a warm pleasant weight on his thigh. Jaskier almost allows his free hand to run through the loose sections of the witcher’s hair but he’s not sure how well that would be received outside of helping the man bathe.</p><p>The salve is gone and the wounds have ceased bleeding, but Jaskier still runs his fingers gently over the scar-riddled flesh of Geralt’s side, checking for any cracked ribs or tender spots that might explain the sudden reaction to his touch before, but when his search yields no such discoveries, he just places a gentle palm on his friend’s bicep.</p><p>“Just about finished,” his voice is barely above a whisper, afraid to disturb the quiet of the room and the strange calm that’s fallen over Geralt and all he gets in reply is a delayed hum of acknowledgement. “I need you to sit up,” he adds and while it takes a second for the words to sink in, Geralt does as he’s asked, shoulders loosened now and as Jaskier places Geralt’s arms on his shoulders to keep them clear while he wraps the bandages around him, he finds himself feeling quite sad.</p><p>Geralt’s skin-hunger is definitely something that’s crossed his mind before. Many times. But the idea that even while in considerable amount of pain, he’s able to find some comfort or peace in just glancing touches to bare skin, enough to leave him quiet(er than normal) and compliant…</p><p>“Lie down and get some sleep. When these’ve healed up, I’ll call for a bath,” he suggests, another hum from the witcher in answer and he just…does what he says. Drops onto the bed with a quiet huff and goes still, golden eyes closed and chest rising and falling in slow, steady measures while Jaskier is filled with a constant buzzing tension beneath his skin.</p><p>They’ve been travelling together a while, nearing a year now, and Geralt’s not the kind of person to put much, if any, trust in others. But there are times like this, where he lets his guard down around Jaskier, not only allows him close, but seems to feel better for it and it makes something clench tightly in the bard’s chest and the little voice in the back of his head wonder aloud, ‘<em>What did I do to deserve this and how do I make sure I never lose it’.</em></p>
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